Paul Ryan did request stimulus funds, but says retroactively he would not have done that (updated)

[ProSense]

Paul Ryan did request stimulus funds, but says retroactively he would not have done that.

by Hunter

Apparently Paul Ryan had his people check into it and yes, it turns out Paul Ryan did indeed write letters explicitly asking for (and getting) stimulus funds in spite of his own certainty that he never would have done such a horrible thing. Well, oops. But he can explain!

You see, he just didn't know those millions of dollars of projects were related to the stimulus. If he had known that those projects were being funded by the stimulus, he would have told those constituents to go right to hell:

“After having these letters called to my attention I checked into them, and they were treated as constituent service requests in the same way matters involving Social Security or Veterans Affairs are handled. This is why I didn’t recall the letters earlier,” he continued. “But they should have been handled differently, and I take responsibility for that. Regardless, it’s clear that the Obama stimulus did nothing to stimulate the economy, and now the President is asking to do it all over again.”

I'm not sure if I can even parse that—Ryan seems to share Mitt's gift for stringing words together in ways that sound like English, but which convey precious little actual information—but he seems to be saying that his office considered those requests to be simple, run-of-the-mill things that Paul Ryan happened to very strongly disagree with, and therefore, um, did anyway without even thinking much about it.

Is Ryan saying his office regularly rubber-stamped constituent requests for money even when he disagreed with them, or that they just never paid much attention, or what? It sounds like he's saying he and his office would normally write requests like that as a routine matter, but really ought to have treated those specific requests differently only because he now realizes they were going to be paid for via the stimulus, which made them bad.

"Oh, you want us to help you fix your town's most important bridge? No problem. Wait, you want to do it as part of the stimulus? Oh, well fuck you, then."

That doesn't even make sense on the level of lame excuse. I guess Paul Ryan is saying that he never would have helped his own constituents get things done if he thought doing so would improve the economy, which he is positive it did not because, um, he says so. Or something—like I said, I can't even parse it. But implicit in all of it is that it was his staff's fault, not his, and that he's truly sorry that his staff prepared these various requests for stimulus money on his letterhead with his own name signed prominently at the bottom of each one.

What a wreck of a campaign. Between Romney and Ryan, it's just one car crash after another.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/16/1121018/-Paul-Ryan-did-request-stimulus-funds-but-says-retroactively-he-would-not-have-done-that

Updated to add:

Federal spending is helping drive recovery of Paul Ryan’s hometown

By Greg Sargent

<...>

So it’s worth pointing out that Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wisconisn, where he still lives, is recovering economically in no small part because of money from the stimulus and other federal grants.

The relevant info is towards the end of Ryan Lizza’s recent New Yorker profile of Ryan. As Lizza put it, “government spending programs” are “at the heart of his hometown’s recovery.”

Lizza reported that several major economic development projects financed by federal money are underway in Ryan’s hometown. There’s the Janesville Innovation Center, which will “provide entrepreneurs with commercial space in which to launch their ideas.” This is being funded by a $1.2 million stimulus grant, Lizza notes.

That’s not all. As Lizza notes, the federal government is contributing over $10 million to a new facility in Janesville that will produce a medical tracer that used to be made outside the U.S. The new plant could employ some 150 people.

- more -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/federal-spending-is-helping-drive-recovery-of-paul-ryans-hometown/2012/08/12/941c5e2c-e493-11e1-8f62-58260e3940a0_blog.html

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[warrior1]

1. I'm getting dizzy from all the spinning

[riverbendviewgal]

2. is he stupid or just trying to lie his way out of this?

I think lying is the answer. His path is do what is best for him...and lie about it if necessary.. For Republicans lying is approved and accepted.

You see, he just didn't know those millions of dollars of projects were related to the stimulus. If he had known that those projects were being funded by the stimulus, he would have told those constituents to go right to hell:

[Lex]

3. Example of "will say anything to get elected"

nt

[jwirr]

4. Well retroactively I would not trust the credit card and banksters either. So should they just

forget what I owe them?

[Horse with no Name]

5. Is this anything like the retroactive resignation from Bain that Romney did?

And why the fuck isn't MY life important enough to have these massive do-overs and why am I accountable to the decisions that I made and they aren't?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

6. These poor guys are just pining away for a time machine

Can't some kind quantum physics expert please hurry up and invent one to take them out of their misery?